Definition: CKO

(Chief Knowledge Officer) The executive officer responsible for exchanging knowledge within an organization. CKOs determine how research storehouses and all other expertise throughout the enterprise can be shared by all departments. They work closely with the CIO to provide the necessary information retrieval systems.

The large U.S. accounting firms were the first to develop this position in the mid-1990s. Although more extensive, the CKO's focus is somewhat like that of the data administrator, a popular position in the 1970s and 1980s, whose responsibility it was to model data for the entire enterprise, crossing all departmental lines.